Talking Bushes: Part Two
By. Bento Box
04/07/03
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Swiftly, silently, with the grace of a lurching, drunken Tonberry, Zell flitted through the shadows of the lush tree-filled garden.
Spying his little hiding spot, he quickly hoisted himself up onto the branch. Climbing one branch after another with several near foot and hand on branch mishaps, he was finally high enough to not be spotted (he hoped) but low enough to be able to hear any conversation below him (he hoped).
He also hoped that Seifer and Squall would be returning to this same spot, and had not designated a new one during one of the many times he knew he had to have missed their private meetings.
Settling himself in with a loud rustle of branches and leaves, he began his apprehensive wait for the two gunblade wielders' arrival.
1 minute... 2 minutes... 3 minutes... 10 minutes....
Zell 's shoulders began to droop as he tried, unsuccessfully, to stifle his bored yawn. Grumbling quietly to himself, he wished that the two men had been more implicit on the time of their meeting.
15 minutes... 20 minutes....
Zell was starting to recount the tales of agony and woe, of each heart-rendering, gut-wrenching, pain-filled cries that he had uttered over the loss and missed chances of his beloved hot dogs. He was trying desperately to keep himself awake. Usually such tragic and horrifying memories served well in making sure he was too tense and twitchy to fall asleep.
25 minutes... 35 minutes....
Why the hell weren't they here yet?! His ass was going numb!
Fighting off the urge to squirm and shift from his uncomfortable position, Zell was too distracted by the numbness in his rear to notice the suspicious rustling of leaves about him.
Until it was too late.
"GUUUWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!"
Zell's graceful, mastered skills of balance and poise as a martial artist fled him at the sudden, soft touch upon his shoulder. Flailing wildly, as if his arms were trying to take flight to fulfil Seifer's self-appointed nickname for Zell, he let out a high-pitched screech. The screech quickly turned into expletives as Zell started to pitch forwards from his precocious perch on the tree branch. His flailing about did not help in the matter of re-obtaining balance.
An arm suddenly shot out, grabbing ahold of Zell's forearm and hauling him back safely onto the tree branch, thus saving him from falling "splat!" face first onto the ground.
Zell clung like a leech to both branch and arm as he fought to regain his breath and composure.
When his heart ceased to feel like it was trying to hammer its way through his ribs, Zell tentatively released his death grip from the arm and instead clung to the branch.
Gah! If I hadn't been caught, I woulda kissed da ground! Hyneeee!
A thought abruptly occurred to him. I wouldn't have had to kiss da ground if some jackass hadn't startled me!
Baring his rather pointy canines, he whirled (well, not so much as whirled as cautiously turn) around to pin down the new presence with accusing eyes.
"Whaaaat in all of da nine shittin' chocobos do ya think ya were doi--?!"
And immediately let the hiss trail off when he realized just who was sitting next to him on the tree branch. The person being a rather happily-smiling Laguna Loire, President of Esthar, father of Squall Leonheart.
"LAGU--??!" President, President! he hastily reminded himself, "--SIR??!"
Laguna seemed perfectly unaware of the shocked and gawking Zell, for he only smiled wider and replied with a cheerful, "Hiya Zell! Wha'cha doing all the way up here?"
Zell's jaw worked funnily for a bit, until his brain seemed to recall the baser functions of closing and opening. His mouth snapped shut with an audible, and painful, clack of teeth.
Giving the smiling, strange, man an incredulous look, Zell's brain ceased to work and immediately took off on a vacation where the birds were green-eyed and clucking "Chicken wuss!" and large, smiling Laguna-daisies gave off hallucinogenic fumes.
Blinking slowly to himself, he didn't notice the curious expression on Laguna's face, or the way the other man had moved closer, as if maybe his nearer proximity would somehow magically cause words to pop out of Zell's mouth in the form of his explanation for being this high up in a tree.
Which it did, to some effect.
When he had dragged himself out of his reverie, he had found himself nearly nose-to-nose with the wide-eyed and unblinking man.
"Gaaaaaaah! Personal space, personal space! Yer crossin' da invisible line!!!" Zell caught himself before he began flailing again.
Laguna's face took on a rather perplexed and guilty expression, and he quickly moved away from the hyperventilating boy.
"I'm sorry, I thought you were going to say something. Um... besides that!" Laguna peered at the younger boy, anxious concern in his gaze. "Are you all right? Were you stuck in the tree or something and couldn't get back down? Want me to carry you back down?" Laguna leaned in closer again, although not as close as he had been previously, an eager and earnest look on his once-again smiling face.
Hyneeeee... I always thought he was a bit... chatty. But I didn't know he was on the same drugs as Selphie!!!
"Zell?"
The query brought Zell back from his inner monologue (he better watch himself, he might just catch up to Squall if he kept this up) and upon seeing Laguna's face, quickly rewound the last few sentences in the conversation and found out what Laguna was waiting for.
"Ahhhh... nooo. Actually, er... see, it's like this. I'm not stuck up here but... uh... the stars! Yeah! I wanted to... look at... the stars?" The last comment came out sounding rather unsure, more in the form of a question than an affirmation.
Laguna blinked and Zell stared, incredulously, at the insanely long lashes that the other man possessed. Damn, and I thought women were supposed'ta have pretty eyes and shit.
And then they were open again, and it was like a lightbulb had been switch on in Laguna's mind, for his eyes lit up brightly, despite there being a very obvious lack of light shining on them.
"Oh! That's great! Would you mind if I joined you, then? I haven't star-gazed in so long!" He smiled brightly, perkily, at Zell again. Never mind that Zell's sorry excuse for an excuse rang hollow, or that the thick interlacing of tree branches and leaves successfully blocked out any chances of actual "star gazing" and thus deflated any smidgen of "truth" in Zell's explanation.
Zell groaned inwardly, and chewing on his lower lip, sought out another explanation that would get Laguna out of the tree and leave Zell alone to his stalk--er, "star gazing".
Whatever half-brained excuse Zell was going to blurt out next effectively died when Zell's ears picked up the sound of approaching people, the sounds of boots thudding dully on the dirt ground.
Eyes growing impossibly wide, Zell quickly clamped a mouth over the other man's mouth, not trusting Laguna to not talk and keep asking questions and thus giving away his--their presence in the tree. Which would, in turn, ruin any chances for Zell of finding out what the flying frick and frack Squall and Seifer were up to.
Holding up the index finger of his free hand to his mouth in the universal sign of, "Be quiet!", Zell carefully peered downwards at the small clearing under the tree where Seifer and Squall had stopped.
Zell's heart began thundering when Seifer didn't just stop and stand next to Squall, but began to walk backwards until he was leaning against the tree trunk.
Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit, don't let him look up, please Hyne don't let him look up! Zell chanted fervently.
Luckily, Seifer didn't look up.
Instead, the tall blonde focused his attention on the quiet man opposite of him.
"So how was your day in Hell?"
Zell blinked. How was your day in Hell? This was almost like... a normal conversation, but not. Because it wasn't normal.
"Alright. Paperwork. Whatever." Squall shrugged. "Yours?"
"Shitty, as usual. Had to stop myself from beatin' the shit outta some fuckwad."
Zell could just barely make out Seifer's smirk.
"Kid pissed himself though."
Squall's brow arched, Zell didn't even have to see it to know that it was there. "........?"
Zell shifted quietly, barely paying any attention to the amazingly well-behaved Laguna. At the new angle, he was able to see Seifer's smirk grow. "What? You said no physical fightin'! Didn't say nothin' about describing their slow and painful deaths."
Amazingly, Squall's mouth twitched in a way that Zell knew was the normally stoic man's way of a small, teeny, weeny, itsy, bitsy smile.
While Zell was preoccupied with this new startling and disturbing discovery, Laguna had suddenly shifted his attention the base of the tree branch that he and Zell were perched upon.
He could clearly see, despite the dim lighting of the setting sun, that the branch was starting to bend rather alarmingly downwards.
creeeeeaaaaaak
Laguna's eyes grew round and wide with surprise, and he tugged carefully at the edge of Zell's shirt. When there was no forthcoming response from the younger man; the careful tugs became careful, controlled, frantic tugs.
Zell eventually noticed that his forgotten companion was trying to get his attention. Irritated, he turned slightly to glance at the other man.
"What?!?" he whispered heatedly.
Laguna gazed at him with urgent, large eyes, still tugging on Zell's shirt and gesturing at the quickly breaking tree branch. Zell's hand was still clamped rather painfully tight around his mouth.
Zell stared at the other man in confusion. "What? What is it?" It didn't seem to occur to him that he would get his answers easier by allowing Laguna to speak.
Laguna could only try to convey his message to Zell by his eyes, and continue to gesture, now wildly, at the branch.
By now, Zell's confusion had given way to frustration and he jerked his hand away from the other man's mouth.
"What's wro--"
The rest of the sentence was cut off abruptly when the branch finally gave way with a loud and very audible CRACK And down they went! A startled Seifer already moving into action by propelling both himself and Squall away from the oncoming, overhead crash.
"GWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!"
That was Zell, and he had slipped back into flailing and flapping his arms wildly.
With mere split seconds to go before they both crashed to the ground, Laguna yanked the smaller boy against him by catching ahold of one of flailing arms, and twisted them both so that he would bear the brunt of the impact instead of the smaller boy.
When the dust and scattering of leaves and pieces of wood began settling down, the area was enclosed in a silence that seemed even louder than the crash mere seconds before.
Seifer and Squall both quickly made their way back to the base of the tree to investigate the cause of the sudden crash, and found themselves staring down at a messy pile of limbs, twigs and leaves.
Seifer nudged at what appeared to be a leg, and was awarded with the sound of a heartfelt muffled groan and protest.
He nudged at the leg again with the toe of his boot.
"Fuuuuuuccckkk!! I think I broke something.... shit! And stop poking me you fucking ass!"
Seifer's brows rose when he recognized the owner of the voice. "Chicken wuss?!"
"DAMNIT! DON'T CALL ME--OWOWOWOWOW!!!"
Zell clutched at his head, his sudden jerk to an upright position sending mind-numbing stabs of pain through his skull.
Seifer grinned, evil intent glinting in his eyes. "What the fuck were you doin' in the tree, Chicken wuss?"
Zell, pre-occupied with the pain in his head that managed to block out everything around him, didn't hear the question or the much hated nickname.
"What? Were you spyi--"
"LAGUNA?!"
The surprised shout caught the blonde's attention, and he quickly turned to his companion, who paid him no heed. Instead, the brunette was staring at another figure lying on the ground, under Zell, with a rather comical and abnormal startled expression on his--meaning Squall's--face.
Seifer followed Squall's gaze downward, and his brows inched up even higher on his forehead. It really was Laguna, and not only that, but he was sprawled underneath Chicken wuss, in a rather... interesting position....
"The fuck?" was his only intelligent response.
Laguna, seeming to feel the two pair of eyes lasering down at him, stirred and blinked his eyes open slowly. And looked at the upside down Squall and Seifer.
Unbelievably, he smiled up at his floored son and his nice, tall, tall blonde friend.
"Hiiiiiiiii sonny-boy! Hello there Seifer!"
Squall and Seifer continued to stare at him.
Laguna squirmed uneasily underneath the two, intense gazes, which also seemed to help in putting Zell back into reality.
"Um... why are you two staring at me like tha--"
"AHHHHHHHHHHH! Whatthehellareyoudoingunderme?! Shitshit! Owowowow! Fucking head!" Zell switched between struggling to free himself from Laguna and clutching at his still aching head.
It really made no sense, as Zell would later reflect back on the event with an embarrassed flush and scowl, how Laguna seemed to be under no pain whatsoever when he should have at least a concussion and several broken bones, if not be near death, seeing as to how Laguna was the one to take the force of both of their falls.
Laguna tried to sit up, stretching out a hand to pat the twitching, crying boy's shoulder, which was accomplished rather awkwardly from his position. "Are you okay? Does your head hurt? Are you bleeding anywhere? Did you break anything? Shhh, come here, calm down, calm down... that's it. Gooooood boy. Now let's get you to the infirmary, hm?"
Laguna gathered the blubbering boy into his arms and rose on amazingly steady feet.
As he walked away, Laguna remembered two figures still back in the clearing, and turned to look over his shoulders. "Good night you two! Have fun star-gazing!!! And don't worry about Zell here, I'll take good care of him!" He would have waved, in accompany to his normalacy-defying smile, if his arms hadn't already been occupied.
Squall and Seifer stared at the retreating back, silence hanging between the two for several moments.
As one, they turned their gazes from Laguna to the ground where the broken tree branch lay, up to the tree from where the tree branch had fallen, back down to the ground, to Laguna's back, and finally, to one another's faces.
"... what the fuck just happened?" Seifer asked out loud, in a deceptively calm and nonchalant tone of voice.
"............." Squall shrugged, in an equally calm and nonchalant way.
"Right."
There was another pause, and out of nowhere an insect began chirping cheerfully.
"Your old man's on drugs."
"................" Squall gave an imperceptible nod.
"You don't think he and Zell are--"
Squall suddenly gave Seifer a horrified look.
"...................!!!!!"
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Notes: OMAHLORD!!! It's GROWN to MONSTRUOS PROPORTIONS! I had so much FUN thinking up this chapter and writing it out... cackles insanely.....!!!